George Block currently serves as Chairman of the Board for both San Antonio Sports and Voices for Children – San Antonio. Prior to his retirement, he was an educator and coach in San Antonio for 36 years, and both COO and CEO of Haven for Hope of Bexar County, our community’s new transformational homeless center, from 2009-2012.

Note: This is an mySA.com City Brights Blog. These blogs are not written or edited by mySA or the San Antonio Express-News. The authors are solely responsible for the content.

A seat the table

Governor Perry (heretofore known as 38%) says that it was a good idea to accept $12 billion from the federal government to balance the state budget, but that it would be “dangerous” to accept $0.7 billion to improve our school systems.

Wow. Even from 38% that’s a Wow.

He says that he’s worried about a “Federal takeover” of our school system. Apparently he wasn’t that worried about a federal takeover of our state when he requested the $12 billion in stimulus dollars.

There are reasons to worry — and not just about a federal takeover. The State takeover may be just as bad. 38% says that he’s worried about federal intrusion into Texas, but he has facilitated state intrusion into local school board decisions.

His lack of intellectual consistency is amazing, but I guess not as amazing as using the word intellectual in a sentence describing him.

But if 38% was really worried about the money, he could have simply turned it down. What he did was much more damaging. He turned down the money AND he refused to let Texas participate in the process. Losing a seat at the table is much more damaging to Texas families and kids than losing the money.

The money would have been nice. Maybe NEISD wouldn’t have had to worry about closing their School of the Arts. All of our districts could have made significant upgrades to teacher training, but that would have been a nice extra. Having a seat at the table while the future of K-12 education in America is being determined — that’s critical.

Governor 38%, when 48 of the 50 states, elected representatives of the major universities, testing services, think tanks and the federal government are around the table to determine the future of education in America, Texas should have a seat at the table. Texas and Texans should be represented. Forget the money. Turn it down. Let us have a seat at the table.

When 48 states and the Feds are at the table, national policy is going to be determined, whether we participate or not — and we should participate. In spite of our problems with immigrant education, Texas has done some remarkable things in public education. Some blindingly foolish things, to be sure, but overall Texas is a leader in “education reform.” When Texas is not allowed to sit at the table, we surrender our leadership position.

Why should we care about national education standards? Pick one.

Textbooks: No matter how big we are, the other 48 states are bigger. If they all agree to a common curriculum, the textbooks are going to be written and edited to that curriculum — without our input.

Standardized tests: If 48 states, the major universities and the federal government all agree on critical curriculum components, the SAT and ACT will reflect those changes very soon. For our kids to succeed, we will have to teach to those standards — standards that we were not allowed to help develop.

College admissions: 38%, this may surprise you, but every high school senior can’t go to A&M. As you may remember, they couldn’t handle even half of the top 10%. A great many of our high school seniors want to see the country and go out of state to college. Those kids will be competing against kids from those 48 states that were allowed to sit down with the universities and develop national education standards.

Jobs: The business community is having significant input into the national discussion. We can read about it since we’re not there. When out-of-state companies are thinking about relocating in Texas, will their jobs go to Texas kids, or will those companies create jobs IN Texas, but not FOR Texas, because they will have to bring in their highest paid employees from those other 48 states?

The Military: Governor 38%, you are constantly telling us how much you support our troops. It’s just their kids you can’t stand. Military children are educated in every state and dozens of foreign countries.

Right now, when military kids move to Texas, they may be behind our Texas kids, or far in front, or simply taking different classes that don’t match up with the sequence they would be taking here. If we are serious about “supporting our troops,” if we are serious about being the number 1 military state, if San Antonio is serious about being “Military City USA,” we should be doing everything we can to make moving to and from Texas as seamless and non-traumatic as we can.

Governor 38%, you owe our military families that. You owe Texas schools a seat at the table for the national discussion. And you could have still turned down the money.